


Better

by lectorisalutem



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6024826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lectorisalutem/pseuds/lectorisalutem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the idea of Rey, during training, deciding to build her own lightsaber. Short, sweet, and a little food for thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

It takes ten days before she can stand it no longer. Luke walks through the dew-soaked grass to wake her, but she’s already outside in the dawning light.

Her back is turned to him. Rey sits on the ground, on a blanket, and around her are bits and pieces of the lightsaber that whispered her name: a battle-worn relic of the Skywalker family, now fully exposed under her hands.

Ineffective.

Improvable. 

The thought has been itching too much in her head. She knows, she _knows_ she can make this weapon better – she could build one by _herself_ better – and she believes it like she believes the sand burns and the sky is freedom and her home is somewhere out there waiting, waiting, waiting; all she has to do it take it apart. All she has to do is understand it herself. There is no doubt in her wild heart that she can: does the sun doubt the planets orbiting it?

So she sits as the barest light emerges, taking apart this artifact of the past piece by piece (a joy she gets to relish for once; or rather, at last, for when has the past ever been on her side?). What surrounds her now is careful, precise dissection, and she looks over it like a surgeon, a goddess on the verge of creation.  

Her master (so he calls himself) approaches behind her, the once owner of the keepsake she surveys. His presence is not subtle: Rey feels his cautious judgement settle on the back of her neck, her skin crossly tingling to the base of her skull at another old man thinking he knows better than her.

She lolls her head. Shifts slightly to face him and speaks, the first beams of sunlight trapped bright in untamed strands of her hair.

“Don’t worry,” Rey says, without any note of panic, or apology, or insincerity: “I can put it back together. I just had to see how it worked. And I know now.” Her face turns away again, and slender hands begin putting the body back together, as if she has done this a hundred times before. Little, unpolished statements flow from her, as casually as saying the ocean encompassing them has waves in it: “I think I’ll be giving this back to you soon. I’m going to make my own. Perhaps more like my quarterstaff." 

A click of metal, and her voice raises slightly, confident and confidential. "I’m very good at building things." Another sharp, mechanical snap. "...Careful, though: your dumb nephew wants it. If he knows you have it, he'll fight you. He's stubborn like that.” 

To this, Luke only nods. The sun finds his face and he thinks of his training with Yoda so long ago: the small master bemoaning his lack of patience, his age, his burning desire for the horizon. How many memories does he have of being rudely awoken for his training, of having no idea what he was doing or who he was meant to be? Oh, if Yoda could only see her, this pupil of his, this Rey; a young woman not so much impatient as built with unshakable resolve, looking forward to each day and every future with resolute intensity. 

Through no power of the Force at all, Luke shares a sentiment with Rey: that the nephew of this Jedi Master could be no further from the truth than to think she could ever need a teacher.


End file.
